


Can't Spell Belief Without A Lie

by Mimca



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Gen, One Shot, Slice of Life, Spoilers for DR1, Ultimate Talent Development Plan (Dangan Ronpa)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 16:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16141508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimca/pseuds/Mimca
Summary: “You shouldn’t lie to yourself, you know!”Chihiro and Kokichi have a conversation.





	Can't Spell Belief Without A Lie

“You shouldn’t lie to yourself, you know!”  
  
_Huh?_  
  
Chihiro tore his gaze away from the computer. On the other side of the cafeteria table, Kokichi Oma stared him down with a knowing shine, and, even though the edge of the screen hid his smile, an odd wrinkle under his left eye.  
  
Chihiro had never spoken to Kokichi. He had never _needed_ to: the Ultimate Supreme Leader had carefully crafted around himself a reputation during their first year at Hope’s Peak Academy. Whenever there was trouble, you just assumed Kokichi had something to do with it. Defacing lockers crossways with a clown face, filling the swimming pool with soda, everything about the Insect Meet n’ Greet; Kokichi had pulled every prank in the book. His own classmates spoke his name with dread and disgust. As if the mere mention of the liar, the nuisance, the A-S-S–he wore those names as many badges of honor–would summon him. _Nee-heehee, talking about little ol’ me, I see!_  
  
But there was something more to Kokichi than met the eyes. Once had Chihiro seen the boy talking to his classmate Celestia, in this very dining hall. The Ultimate Programmer’s keen eye stole a glance just long enough to notice how _precise_ his words and gestures were. Calculated. He had laid the background of the childish, annoying–but ultimately harmless–student, mismatched pins on his shirt and whipped cream topping his tea, _wow_ -ing the Ultimate Gambler; just to hit when she had let her defenses down.  
  
“Buuut,” had he lowered his voice, stretching his vowels in fake annoyance, “luck is just a piss-poor excuse to not improve yourself, isn’t it, Ta-e-ko?”  
  
Celestia had just hummed–a lack of reaction which was, for the control-obsessed girl, a reaction in itself–, and Chihiro remembered how rude it was to eavesdrop. But this snippet of a conversation had been enough for him to get a better grasp of the subtext in the fifty-third class’ collective though. When they talked about Kokichi’s antics, with the hushed voice high school students used for urban legends, they did not dread what he had already done to them. They dreaded what he was _capable_ of doing.  
  
No, Chihiro had never needed to know Kokichi to sense that his sudden interest in him  
  
_(her.)_  
  
could not be anything good. The sight of the Supreme Leader’s half-smile made Chihiro feel sick. The same sickness he felt when his mouth built up before eating a candy: its taste was not as bad as his brain anticipating its sourness. He swallowed, trying to hide his unease.  
  
_Ah, maybe I‘ve taken his spot?_ Obviously not, but that was a better reason than about every other he could make up.  
  
“S–sorry… Could you repeat that?”  
  
The Supreme Leader threw his body back and cleared his throat. “I _said_ , you shouldn’t lie to yourself.”  
  
Chihiro hummed carefully at that statement, pressing both his hands between his knees. “… What are you talking about?” _He can’t be talking about that lie, can he?_ He swallowed again. Kokichi’s eyelids flickered–he swore he saw his gaze plunging down the V-shape of his arms over his chest  
  
_(undressing_ her _.)_  
  
–and he parted his lips in an audible pop.  
  
“Wooow! I didn’t think you’d be so far down in denial. I’m talking about the whole _trap_ thing, obvs!”  
  
Had Chihiro been an outside observer of his own body, he would have been surprised to see no tears welling up in his eyes. Not immediately, at least. His muscles just stilled, hands scraping the fabric of her dress, eyes clouded and not looking at anything. What was he supposed to feel? Shame? Guilt? Or the unnamed feeling of a moment many times fantasized coming true?  
  
“Hey, don’t start crying! If you start to cry…” As Chihiro tried to straighten bravely, that was when he was hit by the weight of all contradictory emotions. Heavy tears formed in his eyes. _She_ could not be here to save him. That female avatar that protected the tiny, frail, unmanly– _ah, why does it have to happen now, like this?_ Through the waters, Kokichi’s smile writhed. “… I’m gonna start to cry too!”  
  
“… Sorry,” Chihiro blubbered. He was not exactly thinking about what he was apologizing for. He was not… what Kokichi had called him. Dressing up as a girl had been the only solution to be safe, to protect himself from the bullies, the little leaders of evil of this world. Coming to Hope’s Peak, he had switched his room plate with Mukuro Ikusaba–a dropout student–to exist in the girls’ dorm, and had reasoned to wait every morning for Mondo to come back from his early jog to use the boys’ washroom at the same time as his friend. It was not easy to keep the charade, but it was necessary. _I had no other choice, right?_  
  
_(right.)_  
  
But anger was so foreign to Chihiro he could not name it as such.  
  
Kokichi sniffed loudly. “’kay, you good now?” Chihiro wiped his face with the back of his sleeve and nodded slowly, keeping his chin down on his chest. He felt it was easier to not cry when he did not have to look at the Supreme Leader. But Kokichi threw himself over the table so that his face came closer to his. The odd wrinkle was gone.  
  
“Hey. I’m not gonna tell everyone your little lie. My secret organization worked extra hard to give me that intel, no way I’m handing it out for free!” Chihiro nodded dumbly again. “The ‘for free’ part was a lie, though.” Something throbbed under his temple. Talking–well, _listening_ was probably more accurate–to Kokichi and his mood swings was starting to cause a headache. A part of him wondered if it would not be easier to actually tell the truth to everyone right here, right now; so that he could face all the negative emotions, all the despair at once.  
  
_(no. Not yet.)_  
  
“I–I know…” he tried to say. “I know I shouldn’t lie to my friends. B–but… When I first arrived here, I was scared… That everyone would see how w–w–” Weak. The word cut his breathing. “That everyone would make fun of me. When I’ll be stronger, I’ll tell them that…”  
  
“ _Wrong!_ ” Kokichi buzzed, and the strength in his voice forced Chihiro to look up in surprise. “Sowwy, but you can’t lie to a liar.”  
  
“W–What do you mean?”  
  
“Boo-hoo, Chihiro was bullied so hard as a kid, he had to dress up as a girl to make cute even boys look at him! He didn’t want to be lonely, even if he had to lie to his ‘friends’. He thought they would leave when they would learn the truth, so he worked to get stronger, just to realize that his friends would always love him for who he really was.” Kokichi stopped himself, gauging reaction. Blink, swallow. Much like he did Celestia, the Ultimate Supreme Leader had found every fissure in the facade and slithered in with words like a cold shower. But Chihiro did not have the Queen of Liars’ strength of (a) character; he could only sit silently and let himself being washed over like another devout. Satisfied, Kokichi sputtered with glee:  
  
“And that’s a big, fat lie! Here, people like you because you’re weak. It makes them feel important, or something. They don’t know the real Chihiro. You won’t be the person they all fell in love with anymore. That’s the real reason you haven’t told them your little secret yet, right?”  
  
Kokichi straightened himself. From his sitting position, Chihiro could see his bangs shadowing his eyes, and his own dropped on the smile stretched thin like a spider thread. He pressed: “Riiight?”  
  
_(wrong.)_  
  
But Kokichi _was_ right. He remembered how Makoto had said, back when they first spoke to each other, how he thought most programmers were guys, and though he also doubled down on his _no_ s in apologies, that first encounter had stuck in his mind as an example. As a girl, he could talk about feeding birds and sakura bouquets but had to lose his love for obscure Funplane games and punk rock. And he had not realized until now how those things crystallized into her and became–as if following the exact same train of thoughts, Kokichi grinned knowingly, cutting his face through in a shadowy mask–part of the lie. As the realization bubbled to the surface, so did the tears again. Gross, ugly tears.  
  
“Wh–Wh–What am I supposed to do then…?” Chihiro managed to say. “Whether I change o–or stay the same…”  
  
“I dunno,” Kokichi answered casually. “I don’t think there’s a golden ending. Everyone can’t and won’t love you. Better come to terms with that fact before you get your heart broken.”  
  
Anger led to sadness and sadness led to confusion. Chihiro raised his hands from his knees–as his head felt too heavy, too full of foreign voices his own tongue could not reprocess. In his empty right hand laid his lie: that the love he and his friends built would not be real until he could find his own strength. Behind the fingers of the left hand, Kokichi dropped his head without a word. Would his classmates  
  
_(her friends.)_  
  
hate him for the truth, at the very moment he would be comfortable with his real self? That sounded…  
  
_(fake.)_  
  
Chihiro tried a shy smile on his lips. “… Thank you, Kokichi. I think you’re wrong,” the other boy tilted his head with an even face, “about my friends… But it _is_ selfish to ask them to love someone else, so… I will make new friends. True friends. And for that, I need to love _myself_ first.”  
  
_Is it the right thing to say?_  
  
“… Interesting,” Kokichi said after a moment of silence, as he spun on his heels. “So you choose the not-so-boring answer, huh?”  
  
Chihiro turned on his chair, throwing his voice as a lasso to grab Kokichi’s attention. “Why did you come to tell me all that?” The other boy’s smile faltered, even if for a brief moment. He felt he could hear the gears turning in his mind. That gave him the courage to press on. “… Is it because you’ve been ly–”  
  
“Yup!” Kokichi interrupted, the odd wrinkle back on his face. “I’ve been lying the whooole time! But you don’t meet the requirements to get my Special Event.” His voice dropped at the last few words. “I can give you some spoilers, though. I’m not a bad guy. But, as a Supreme Leader, I can’t afford to show my real self. So, if I make people hate me, they won't probe to see my weaknesses…  
  
But that was a lie!” Kokichi flicked his finger under Chihiro’s nose. He frowned, mentally recollecting his thoughts. He wanted to say more: though the candy was sour, there was this underlying taste that lingered on the tongue, he could not help but ask for another bite. “I just need a small favor from the Ultimate Programmer, for later. I did say that keeping your secret wouldn’t be free, remember?”  
  
Second-hand embarrassment crept onto Chihiro’s face. To that understanding silence, Kokichi simply laughed with his trademark laugh and trotted towards the door. The Ultimate Programmer watched the white silhouette fading completely in the corridor, just to be _extra_ sure; but there was no dramatic turn back, no hesitant look behind one shoulder, no _another thing!_ As if the conversation had already escaped his mind.  
  
Then Chihiro turned again to face his laptop. Instead of turning it back on, he studied his reflection in the blackened screen. He was not sure what to think of Kokichi yet. He tried to reconcile the rumor that carried him around Hope’s Peak like a malevolent spirit, with that helpful boy and his half-smiles. He saw–but it may have been but a trick of the light–a newborn shine in his eyes.  
  
When, three weeks later, Kokichi would laugh his head off at Kiibo dancing uncontrollably in the study– _an improvement_ , had he goaded the Ultimate Programmer to get him to help–, he would revise his judgment. But, at this moment, he smiled at his reflection, before letting it fade in the routine of his work. There was no lie in believing that Kokichi Oma was a friend–  
  
_(_ his _friend.)_


End file.
